i've been ruminating a lot on it because i think i'm bad at putting my thoughts into words but i need y'all to understand that while there are absolutely a lot of Not Good Things about the finals being held in saudi arabia for three years...the way people seem to treat is as morally black and white is shortsighted and unhelpful.
realistically the players traveling there will be protected. it may be uncomfortable, it's certainly not ideal, but they will travel there for a few weeks, play their tennis, then leave. there are a lot of women, a lot of queer people who actually live in saudi arabia who cannot just leave, who are actually subjected to laws and social climates...and to me it just seems very disrespectful to that actual lived experience, for everybody to sort of turn their noses up and get on their high horses. of course, if the players wish to opt out, that is their choice, but that is their choice to make. that's their judgement. not ours.
and then, what about a tournament like miami? florida is literally experiencing one of the worst active regressions that i've seen in the us (granted i'm young). things like critical race theory and lgbtq+ ed are being removed from curriculums, rights for trans youth, trans healthcare, etc. are going backwards. abortion rights? gun violence? and yes i know that the laws and climate in saudi arabia are different gravy, i understand that, but my point is, no one would ever DREAM of arguing against hosting a tournament in miami despite all of these issues. and we can extend this to a lot of other tournaments! i mean, all the outrage about fifa hosting a world cup in qatar, but we don't have any of these sentiments about doha? i've seen other people bring up that the finals were hosted in singapore when gay marriage was still illegal there. we've already talked about italy's fascist prime minister. and i could go on and on and on about the war crimes of countries like the us or the uk - is the us not participating actively in genocide right now? where is the standard? if you argue against hosting the finals in saudi arabia for the reason of human rights, to me it seems you have to uphold that standard for the location you do land on. and i can guarantee, you will not find a single country in the world with clean hands.
i want to be clear i am not arguing that hosting the finals in saudi arabia is a good thing, especially for three years, especially because it's definitely going there because of money, and not for any of the "good" reasons i think some people want us to believe about "improving the region" (which is very weirdly white savior-esque anyway). i don't really have an official "conclusion" to this discussion.
what i am arguing is that i think a lot of the protests against saudi arabiahosting the finals are more an example of implicit anti-arab bias and islamophobia, rather than genuine discussion. key word implicit: i don't think most people are purposefully trying to be anti-arab/islamophobic. or at least, i'd like to believe nobody is. but i also think, particularly in the west, there is already so much of this xenophobic sentiment ingrained. and this is why i think it's really really REALLY important to check ourselves when we talk about it instead of just jumping straight to the human rights conversation without a second thought.
i'll say it plainly: i don't think the finals should be held in saudi arabia. but for me, it has more to do with sportswashing, with the dangers of the way money is thrown around in sports, and because i think it's more evidence that the wta doesn't care about player welfare but rather about making a profit (what else is new). human rights are absolutely a concern of mine, but how is it fair to hold saudi arabia to a standard that we don't seem to care about for literally anybody else?
literally look at the us's ugly ugly history, past and present, and tell me why we deserve to host a tennis tournament.
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Everything I learn about that stupid Palworld game makes me loose more and more faith in gamers. Because everyone was saying it looks good.
But it doesn't.
This game is ugly as fuck.
The menus have zero stylisation, it's just a semi transparent black box with plain white text. While the overworld and the Pal's are in completely different art styles.
There's the obvious plagiarism, ripping meshes directly from pokemon models and designs from fan made fakemons. This isn't the studio's only plagiarised game. There's the well known among us rip off that uses Ai art. Their game Craftopia asks the bold question, is everything people thought Genshin Impact was going to be (a lazy botw rip off). While their up coming Metroidvania game rips directly from hollow knight.
Everyone is saying that this is what people want from pokemon but, is it? When it comes to the games that get praised it the ones with the better story and game play. But Palworld has no story and it doesn't really have gameplay comparable to pokemon.
This isn't a creature collector, it's not a turn based rpg, it's a survival crafting game with a shitty gimmick they only did for attention. It's completely soulless. At least modern Pokemon games have some soul. No matter what crunch they were under someone at game freak wanted to make a good game worth playing, even if it runs like genshin impact on my old potato phone.
You can put sleek graphics over a soulless husk of a game and gamers will act like it's the best thing since sliced bread.
If you want to play a good pokemon-like by an indie studio that doesn't commit gross plagiarism, play Cassette Beasts.
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I'm late to the party like you wouldn't believe, but I've got to say something, because I'm so upset!
Okay, unpopular opinion, I actually loved Jaskier's Season 3 hair!
Was it always perfectly styled? No. There were a few scenes where I personally thought it could have used a bit more volume, or a bit more volume in some places while a bit less in others; but, most or the time, I was more than fine with it, and thought it suited Jaskier well!
At times, I literally adored it!
Ex:
To me, those are moments where I thought Jaskier looked his best in the series! Loved the hair!
Then again, personally, I tend to prefer Joey's looks with his forehead cleared and his hair longer.
Like, this is I think one of the most gorgeous non-feral hairstyles I've ever seen on him:
(X)
This is an absolutely gorgeous man, and I personally prefer his hair styled like this than short.
(Note: I'm not saying he's not beautiful with short hair, too, simply stating personal preferences. Certain aesthetic choices are based on comfort, too, and he can 100% afford to sacrifice the "long haired look" for something that makes him feel more comfortable. He can rock plenty of different looks!)
Then, of course, there's the feral look that is just in its own category...
So why am I upset?
I've just found out that he didn't wear a wig in Season 3!
That Jaskier's Season 3 hair were simply Joey's own hair that he had decided to grow out.
And look, I'm fine with everyone having preferences!
That's not my issue. Having your own tastes and not being a fan of Joey's Season 3 hairstyle is not the issue at all!
There were posts simply mentioning that they hated that it looked so flat, when we could have been graced with something a bit more like this:
And I do get preferences when it comes to styling.
It's just that I recall how - since people assumed it was "an ugly wig" that had been forced on his head by the wig department, rather than what they considered "a bad hairstyle" - the comments on "Jaskier's hair" were at times downright nasty!
And I just gotta get out of my system that those of you that have been literally making fun of his "sudden 4-inches receeding hairline" (first I'll have you know I find receeding hairline pretty hot!), when it's kinda remained the same for 3 seasons (it's called BANGS people. Joey tends to wear those with his shorter haircuts! Look it up!), for example, really suck!
His hairline has always gone pretty far up on each side, even in some of his earlier work... Ex: Gopher in "Mount Pleasant" (2016):
Like he's got very thick hair that form a "V" shape at the top (my mom had that, but I didn't inherit it... And we've got tons of hair... Like, a lot! * ) and a pretty large forehead.
*
(That's me at 18, and then at 28 - before I brought them back to a lower back length - but my mom is the same in terms of thickness, she just has that V in the front I lack, and it never receeded any further in her life.)
And there would be no shame in having thin hair, or any form of baldness anyway!
So yeah! I remember sort of heavily ignoring all those "ugly wig" comments because I, too, had assumed it was a wig (turns out Joey's hair seem to be a bit like mine, and grow pretty fast), and at some point you choose your battles.
Did I think a bunch of you were immature assholes for needing to hate on that "ugly wig" so much? Yes. But you find those in any fandom!
Personally, I thought "the wig" was awesome!
But now, I kinda regret not having taken the time to be more supportive of Jaskier's Season's 3 hair given I actually like it...
Because that's just a (very sweet) human being's hair, that was styled in a way that a number of people didn't like.
Again, zero problem for those that thought it was badly styled, and that the look didn't suit Jaskier!
Critiquing what you find a "bad hairstyle" is no cause for shame!
But, for those of you that took it to the next level with all those "ugly wig" comments, you fucking suck, I sure hope you've since found out that you'd been openly ridiculing a fellow human being's real hair, that it makes you feel like complete pieces of shit, and that feeling like complete pieces of shit is going to help you learn from your mistakes, before you start attacking other people's personal physical features in the future!
"Well, I didn't know!"
Here's today's lesson:
When you don't know, please kindly shut up and assume the hair you see is the real thing!
Or critique the wig like you would a real hairstyle, asking yourself "Hmm... Is describing someone's real hair the way I do going to make me sound like a bully?"
Like I said, I'm aware I'm pretty late to the party, but the the kid in me that got heavily bullied in school over her own hair really needed to get it out of her system!
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literally exerting sooo much self control and impulse control not to snap back at idiots replying stupid shit on my posts. people are annoying as fuck sometimes. like if you have 'commentary' about how i interact with shit and answer asks, you can literally fuck off. i spend absurd amounts of time trying to be nice and provide specific bears and nice replies to people at their request. and then the one time i get slightly irritated people freak the fuck out and start lecturing me about being 'unprofessional' and 'rude' and 'obnoxious' like im sorry but fuck all the way off. this is fucking tumblr. nothing about tumblr is professional. i don't have to provide y'all with bears. i don't have to make a pinned post to explain myself. newsflash, i already have a pinned post that i'm rather fond of. i don't have to act or respond to things any kind of way. i choose to respond kindly with nice encouraging messages and provide bears, and spend ridiculous amounts of time looking up specific requested bears for people. i choose to do that because i want to make people happy and spread some positivity. i choose to do that because this world is shit as fuck sometimes and i want to create a little space free from drama and negativity where people can enjoy bears and get a little reprieve from this shit ass world and the bullshit of life. i choose to do all that because i want to. but heaven forbid i'm not in the mood 100% of the time to always be perfectly nice and happy and go-lucky. and then i get shits giving me crap over it like i'm somehow obligated to do all this shit for free and always respond exactly the way they desire me to. and it is pissing me the fuck off. because i genuinely put so much effort into bearotonin and trying to make other peoples' lives better in this one tiny small way. i have a life y'all. i have a job and school and an actual adult life with responsibilities. but i choose to do this because i love bears and i think bearotonin is hilarious and making people happy is something that makes me happy. but i don't owe anyone anything, and if you have complaints about the way i comport myself or respond to messages or posts i make, well you can fuck off. i don't want to hear it. you don't need to reblog my posts and tag them with little messages about how you disagree, or write replies/comments saying i should act better or should be expecting this, or send me stupid asks. you can literally keep your negative thoughts to yourself. because people need to fucking realize that your tags are not private. if you put them on a post, the op is going to see them. and in this case, the op is going to be super pissed off by them.
to be clear, 99% of people are awesome and super nice and i love y'all dearly (and this post is absolutely not about you in any way), but the other 1% are really getting on my fucking nerves right now and it is taking a lot of effort to not engage with them directly and tell them to fuck off to their faces
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I've made the beanfluencer beans enough times now that I've used up two full jars of miso paste, and the reason this is high praise is because miso paste is exactly the kind of grocery I would typically buy for a recipe I only make once and never find another use for and throw it away after two months cos it's gone bad. Feels pleasantly novel to be low on a jarred substance and have to buy more of it because I want more.
BONUS MISO TRUTH: I first went vegan (from vegetarian) when I was 18, I chose as the transition day the exact day I moved out of my mom's place to start uni, which was a horrible decision for countless reasons, among which was the fact that I had essentially no experience at all with cooking or indeed food shopping at this point. And 2010 was a very different era, at least where I am there wasn't like a bunch of stuff labelled "plant-based" on the shelves, food brands didn't acknowledge the concept at all and it wasn't that uncommon to meet people who didn't even know what vegan meant. Veganism was genuinely hard mode back then. Anyway one of the first purchases I made in my new life was a thing of miso paste, because it was one of the few real food items I found in the store that was vegan-legal, but I didn't know what the fuck it was and all I could think to do with it was smear it thickly on some toast. Which tasted really bad! So I threw it away. And that's roughly how good I was at veganism and indeed all of the rest of my life for about the next five years.
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